Articles by Grist staff

Hitting the Sack

In Ireland, the question “paper or plastic?” has become all but obsolete after the introduction last March of a tax on supermarket bags. Irish Environment Minister Martin Cullen announced this week that the tax has been highly successful, with the amount of plastic bags provided by grocery stores dropping 90 percent after the tax was […]

Fin-ished

By virtue of its name, the whale shark summons a ferocious mental image, something along the lines of Moby Dick meets Jaws. But in reality, the creature is a gentle, slow-moving fish. Unfortunately for the species, that means whale sharks are easily captured by fishers, who chop off their fins to supply a hungry Asian […]

Spoilers-r-us

If there had been any doubt that the U.S. would play the role of pariah at the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development, it was banished yesterday when White House officials announced their goals and strategies for the meeting, which begins next week in Johannesburg, South Africa. The U.S. delegation’s plan is, essentially, to stonewall: […]

Corn Bawl

In a slap in the face to the bioengineering industry, the government of Zambia has rejected thousands of tons of genetically modified corn offered as food aid to the starving nation. Instead, the country will buy conventional corn from Kenya and Tanzania, according to Zambian Finance Minister Emmanuel Kasonde. Kasonde declined to say how much […]